Generic Company Place Holder Revolution Media

Revolution Media takes the Hypercard model and brings it
screaming into the 21st century, extending its
programming-for-nonprogrammers capabilities to things like XML and
Internet access while still keeping the simple, flexible,
English-like language. It's a powerful and inexpensive tool for a
variety of programming concepts, but it also shows where the old
model has fallen a bit behind the times.

"Hypercard," you say? Sit down and let your grandpa tell you a
story. Back in the late 1980s, Apple Computer started bundling a
little program called Hypercard in with all of its Macs. This
program was far ahead of its time, allowing you to build a GUI
(Graphical User Interface) without programming, then wire up code
to it. It was also extensible, and began being used for everything
from adventure games (the precursor to Myst used Hypercard) to
front ends to corporate databases. Apple really didn't know what to
do with it or how to market it, though, and it languished and
finally died as programs like Visual BASIC embraced, extended, and
exterminated.

First, the good news: The program is as easy as the old
Hypercard was. You literally draw out your interface using a wide
range of controls such as fields, buttons, tables, and so on. Then
you add functionality by writing small scripts. You can create
libraries of functions and subroutines, or put all your code into
the objects themselves. Your program consists of "stacks" of
"cards", each card containing its own objects and data. For users
new to programming, the language is simple and yet complete, with
all of the expected control structures. By default, the language
can be more verbose than many professional programmers prefer, but
while there are ways to make it terser, you'll never mistake it for
C or PERL.

The bad news--the cost of this simplicity is that the program is
"object-like" rather than truly "object-oriented", and if you don't
know what that means, you probably don't care. There is not an easy
way to create, say, a text field with inherited behavior that all
future text fields share; you must manually add a script to each
field to give it the functionality you want. (You can, of course,
copy and paste the object, but then if you want to change the
functionality, you must change it in each copy of the field.) The
other alternative is to design a custom control, but that requires
programming in a different language.

Revolution is best used for interface-intensive applications
working with mostly static data. It's ideal for kiosks or
interactive demonstrations, front ends to databases, and
presentations. It's not something to use to write the next Word or
Warcraft in, though it can be used to design casual games. The
Media version cannot make true stand-alone executables; although
the more expensive Studio and Enterprise editions can. Last of all,
Revolution is cross-platform for the PC, Mac, and Linux, providing
functionality similar to Java but with a much smoother learning
curve.

Note: This link takes you to the vendor's site, where you
must register download the latest version of the software. Make
sure you select "Media" in the "Revolution Edition" picklist.

--Ian Harac

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